The first Dutch community of practice united representatives of Water Authorities, researchers and SMEs. Participants shared experiences with new sanitation systems, from a technical perspective as well as from a governance perspective.
There are some technical challenges, mainly in terms of continuity of operation of the different systems. However, most challenging is to find a working governance structure for working with and deciding on development of new sanitation. Often projects are too small to achieve such a structure and they are also not integrated in the governance of the conventional systems. This leads to a lack of responsibility and ownership for (issues with) the technical systems.
A core question with new sanitation systems is how to convince the competent authorities of their benefits. Often these systems score high on circularity and sustainability but are more costly than conventional systems. The comparison with existing systems is often biased, since most investments have already been done. It is better to compare new sanitation systems with ‘to-be-constructed’ conventional systems.
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For any thoughts about this article you can reach out to the author, Henk-Jan van Alphen (KWR, NL).